Nèdeem Elmahjoub's blog

—Siyavash Shahabi  on  March 26, 2025 Recommended  Liberalism – A Counter-History by Domenico Lesurdo

Between wars, drugs and unemployment

To say . . . that wars are caused by the ammunition industry, would be a cheap assertion. The ammunition industry is by no means a branch of production existing for itself, it is not an artificially created evil which in turn calls forth the ‘battle of nations’. It ought to be obvious . . . that armaments are an indispensable attribute of state power, an attribute that has a very definite function in the struggle among state capitalist trusts. . . . [J]ust as it is true that not low prices cause competition but, on the contrary, competition causes low prices, it is equally true that not the existence of arms is the prime cause and the moving force in wars . . . but, on the contrary, the inevitableness of economic conflicts conditions the existence of arms. —Nicolai Bukharin,  Imperialism and World Economy

 The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say, ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellowmen, ‘Do not listen to this imposter. — Jean Jacques Rousseau,  Discourse on the Origin of Inequality  (1754) 

A bipartisan sampling of the world’s greatest perpetrators and enablers of political violence has rushed to condemn political violence following the   shooting attempt   on former President Donald Trump To say that “political violence” has “no place” in a society organized by political violence at home and abroad is to acquiesce to the normalization of that violence, so long as it is state and capitalist monopolized.

A very concise and pertinent summary:  The Palestinians are seen as ‘anachronistic problem that affects regional stability and hampers economic prosperity’. I wish there was more elaboration on that. Maqdisi – a historian – here empties history of political economy and regional sociology . Middle East Eye like most outlets generally encourages the fragmentation of social thought. Yet I recommend Maqdisi’s article The Mythology of the Sectarian Middle East (2017). Related The Oslo illusion A powerful group of Palestinian capitalists are profiting off occupation

Vladimir Jabotinsky, the erudite and much misunderstood Zionist leader who posthumously became the founding father of the Israeli right (one of his closest aides, Benzion Netanyahu, was the father of the current prime minister) in his famous 1923 essay : My readers have a general idea of the history of colonization in other countries. I suggest that they consider all the precedents with which they are acquainted, and see whether there is one solitary instance of any colonization being carried on with the consent of the native population. There is no such precedent. The native populations, civilized or uncivilized, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists, irrespective of whether they were civilized or savage. And it made no difference whatever whether the colonists behaved decently or not. The companions of Cortez and Pizzaro or (as some people will remind us) our own ancestors under Joshua Ben Nun, behaved like brigands; but the Pilgrim Fathers, the first real pioneers of North A...

Arno Mayer (1926-2023)

“It is fair to assume that the different fractions of the ruling class in a country sometimes have diverging, even opposing interests. But if the country is the empire that dominates the world, on one point at least the ruling classes will agree: they do not want to see the basis of their power (i.e., the nation-empire) weakened. Those who have power intend, at a minimum, to maintain it, if not consolidate or expand it. So it is reasonable to infer that the conflicting interests between the various fractions manifest themselves in different strategies for ruling the world, in different conceptions of empire. “ Despite all his bombastic proclamations, Trump has not started any wars. Under Biden we are already on the second.” Elective affinities

Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness – and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe.  The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling – their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability.  Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them.  Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”  ― Arundhati Roy ,  War Talk

 “The first person who, having enclosed a plot of land, took it into his head to say, ‘This is mine,’ and found people simple enough to believe him, was the true founder of civil society. What crimes, wars, murders, what miseries and horrors would the human race have been spared, had someone pulled up the stakes or filled in the ditch and cried out to his fellowmen, ‘Do not listen to this imposter.” — Jean Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Origin of Inequality  (1754)  Constructing partition Related Hollow Land: Israel’s Architecture of Control

 Why I support the ban

“The UN's labour organisation is keen to stress that slavery is not confined to poor countries far away from the Western world - more than half of all forced labour happens in wealthier countries in the upper-middle or high-income bracket.“ 10 million increase in numbers in five years

Dear Priti, Rwanda is not deterring ‘aliens’ . What are you gonna do about it? Related A couple of figures in the article below are not inaccurate.  There isn’t a single mention of the stark hypocrisy, racism and double standard in migration policies. “Globally, this system of sealed borders and hostile migration policy is dysfunctional. It doesn’t work for anyone’s benefit.” Not true. A few people benefit of cheap labour and driving wages down, and others use restrictions on migration to win elections. The century of climate migration

Saying that Lewis was a historian of “vast erudition” and “ a usually very good author” is very arguable.  The review though is good. Note that on the demographic ‘problem’ the current fertility rate in countries like Iran, Turkey, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia is similar to France’s (see fertility rates of each country on wikipedia). The question remains: it is about the form of economic development.  What Went Wrong

“ The oil world I inhabited brought together geopolitics and the everyday. It was material and dirty, and bloody and wracked by wars, coups d’état and revolutions. It was a world wrought by political struggle on the streets and at the diplomatic table. Corporations, universities and security apparatuses all had a finger in the pie. And along with the people who worked the oilfields and filled the streets during demonstrations they changed the world in perceptible ways, sometimes suddenly and monumentally, as when Middle East and Latin American leaders negotiated better oil deals for their countries; sometimes gradually, through a series of unintended consequences.” A review of Disorder : Hard Times in the 21st Century by Helen Thompson Laleh Khalili’s critique highlights good missing points in Thompsons’ book. However, Khalili never mentions capital and profit and their role in shaping geopolitics. We blitzed it Related Carbon Democracy

Irish law maker speaks out

The Other and the Ordeal of the World Can the Other, in light of all that is happening, still be regarded as my fellow creature? The Other’s burden having become too overwhelming, would it not be better for my life to stop being linked to its presence, as much as its to mine? Why must I, despite all opposition, nonetheless look after the other, stand as close as possible to his life if, in return, his only aim is my ruin? If, ultimately, humanity exists only through being in and of the world, can we found a relation with others based on the reciprocal recognition of our common vulnerability and finitude? In a world characterized more than ever by an unequal redistribu- tion of capacities for mobility, and in which the only chance of survival, for many, is to move and to keep on moving, the brutality of borders is now a fundamental given of our time. Today we see the principle of equality being undone by the laws of autochthony and common origin, as well as by divisions within citizensh...

Can the Other, in light of all that is happening, still be regarded as my fellow creature? When the extremes are broached, as is the case for us here and now, precisely what does my and the other’s humanity consist in? The Other’s burden having become too overwhelming, would it not be better for my life to stop being linked to its presence, as much as its to mine? Why must I, despite all opposition, nonetheless look after the other, stand as close as possible to his life if, in return, his only aim is my ruin? If, ultimately, humanity exists only through being in and of the world, can we found a relation with others based on the reciprocal recognition of our common vulnerability and finitude? In a world characterized more than ever by an unequal redistribu- tion of capacities for mobility, and in which the only chance of survival, for many, is to move and to keep on moving, the brutality of borders is now a fundamental given of our time. Today we see the principle of equality being und...

  The Contradictions of Capitalist Democracy